Apple retail receiving shipments, new signs for Monday — We have received word that Apple retail stores have received unidentified shipments, as well as new signage, slated to go up on Monday. The London Regent Street Apple Store has received a single box that is padlocked, and under orders to be put in a safe until Monday.

iPhone 3G? — The hype is in overdrive that there's a new iPhone coming on Monday. On the other hand, I've been hearing that Forbes/Financial Times/Barrons' rumors of troubles in getting the new 3G iPhone design done and to production are correct and that there's no way that it'll be ready to ship this month.

BlackBerry Thunder live shot, damn we're good! — You all know the Thunder right? Well, looky looky who got a cookie. Yeah peoples, live shot of the BlackBerry Thunder right here. By just looking at the photo, we can see that almost every button on a traditional BlackBerry like the convenience keys are still there.

Twitter+Apple! — Tomorrow is the much anticipated Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference and there's going to be some very interesting breaking-news happening on Twitter. During the event, we are expecting approximately ten times our normal daily traffic so we've made some plans to accommodate this dramatic surge.

MICROSOFT ENTERTAINMENT & DEVICES DIVISION PRESIDENT: “We ship lots of 3G phones already on Windows Mobile. ... We will outsell the iPhone. We will outsell the BlackBerry.” — You won't hear the words “Zune” and “phone” uttered in any proximity to one another by Microsoft's Robbie Bach any time soon.

Frustration and Fury: Take It. It's Free. — TRENT REZNOR'S home is on the outskirts of Beverly Hills, up a maze of climbing one-lane roads that baffle a rental car's GPS navigation. It's perched on a dizzyingly steep slope with a panoramic view of smoggy downtown. — At the moment Mr. Reznor isn't living there.

Three Rules For Startup Success — There are no hard and fast rules for startup success. There I said it. — Over the past week, I have been spending more and more time at the Techstars “Bunker.” A garden level office space in a hidden spot in Boulder where ten teams of startup hopefuls …

Slide Says It's Done Releasing New Facebook Apps — Slide, the company that makes Facebook's most popular apps, says it's done making new ones for the social network. Keith Rabois, VP of strategy and business development, told us this week that the company wants to concentrate on making …

Nightmare on Microsoft Street — Imagine this: — Google (GOOG) starts buying up a series of promising and innovative Web 2.0 companies that Microsoft (MSFT) is either partnered with or clearly is or should be interested in. — It starts with Digg, moves onto, say, Spot Runner and others …

Warner Music (WMG) Pulls Out Of Last.fm (CBS) - wow! — Just read this news on Silicon Alley Insider, and the NYT Bits blog (belatedly): Warner Music Group has pulled their music off the on-demand part of Last.fm due to... you guessed it, conflicts over how much MONEY they are going to get …

Google's experimental Gmail toys — Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley — In a first, Google is opening up its testing process by calling on tens of millions of Gmail users to put new features of the service through their paces. — Gmail Labs has launched 13 settings for users …